Developments of Specific English Communication Skills for Thai Massage Therapists in Chiang Mai

Abstract

            The objectives of this research were 1. To create English lessons for developing English communication skills for Thai massage therapists in Chiang Mai and to find out the effectiveness of the teaching package with them following the criteria 80/80 and  2. To study the opinions of Thai massage therapists in Chiang Mai towards English lessons to develop English language communication skills for 30 Thai massage therapists who are a sample of Thai massage therapists in Chiang Mai from Thai Traditional Medical Centre. Chiang Mai Municipality Hospital. The researcher used the purposive sampling method, especially for those who were interested in developing English language skills. This research is experimental research by studying one group, pre-test - post-test design).

             The results showed that information about the knowledge and understanding of 30 Thai massage therapists: the highest scores of education were a knowledge that was beneficial to their career. (The average is 4.36) and the statistics of the English skill level was found that the average score level before the English skills training is 40.90 which is in the middle level. The standard deviation is 5.40 and the average after English language skills training is 53.10, which is good. The standard deviation is 5.79 and the statistical analysis used to compare the differences in the English language skills training score of Thai massage therapists for 3 months showed that scores and cognition after (Post-test)were higher than the scores before (Pre-test). There was a statistically significant difference at the level of 0.05. Thus, the average scores after training were higher than the average scores before training. Particularly, the post-test of cognitive scores after the course are over (72.58) before the pre-test (50.00), representing an average increase of 45.16 percent. Therefore, the experiment for the effectiveness of the instructional package with Thai massage therapists can develop the English communication skills and took the post-test better than the pre-test, based on the results of the test and the Thai massage therapists are very satisfied with the course.